Author
Topic: Garlic and other fall veggies (Read 15247 times)

Thomashton. One day I will grow some of the softneck variety. That would be the most cool thing to braid the tops (haven't done that braiding of anything since my gals were little gals, and then I would have the time of my life, hee, hee).

I grow the hardneck rambocole, man and let me tell you they are tough and rock hard for surely. Once they have wicked and dried, I have to take the garden shears to cut the stalk off close to the bulb. It is a toughy for sure.

I like to snip little pieces off the garlic leaves when they are growing, they make the most delicious greens to add to my, for example, potato salad! Yum, yum, or the fresh potatoes with the garlic greens, fresh dill that grows wild around here, popping up everywhere, and of course, big ol' fattening and luscious butter, and lots of it, hee, hee, oh yes, and don't forget the salt and pepper!!! BEautiful day, dreamin' of those summertime vegies!!! Cindi

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There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold. The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold. The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee. Robert Service

by that I mean, onions or garlic (and I do this with potato's too) that starts sprouting greens while waiting to be cooked is no longer good to eat... but with garlic, I separate the cloves and plant them, and leave them for 2 years, after which, I get a complete garlic bulb out of each clove... with the onions, I only get 2-3 medium sized onions for every large one I plant, which roughly works out to about the same amount of onion... but I at least didn't have to let any go to waste, and I harvest them the same year they are planted anyway. I do the same thing with potato's, but cut them into quarters before planting them. I can get about a full sack of potatos for every one that would have gone to waste otherwise.

Oh, on the onions, cut off the flower buds before they bloom or else you'll have to let them sit in the ground another year.

You gotta love getting something for nothing...

PS - You'd be surprised how many veggie garden favorites you can get from left-over groceries... lets see... honeydew, watermellon, cantalope, tomato, cucumber, summer squash, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, can all be grown from seeds taken from groceries...

SgtMaj. About the garlic. I wonder why you leave them for two years? Maybe you know something that I don't know. I need to know.

When I plant garlic, I plant the cloves in the fall, that be sometime in September, or early October. By the July of the following year I always have beautiful and big bulbs, comprised of about 6-8 cloves. I have never left them in for the two years, and now I really am wondering if they would be even nicer if I left them in for two years. So.....now you have sent me into experimental mode. I am going to tag and leave a fair number of the bulbs (that were cloves last year) and see what happens in the following year.

I know that very often I don't get all the bulbs up and they resprout in the spring in places where I never even planted them.

One year I let the garlic flowers mature and they produced hundreds upon thousands of little bulbils. I planted these tiny little bulbils in a particular spot in the garden. The following summer they produced a bigger bulb, I left them again for that year and then the bigger bulbils produced bulbs the following year. So that was a two year process and very time consuming, not going there again.

I have garlic coming out of my ears everywhere. I think that the squirrels must dig them up too and replant them. How else could they get in the places where no human hand has ever been? That befuddles me, but oh that is a great thing. I have never bought garlic now in years and years.......we are garlic. Have that most beautiful and wonderful day, love this great life we are all livin' and sharin'. Cindi

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There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold. The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold. The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee. Robert Service

I planted garlic last fall, and started with the bulbils that take 2 years to mature into full bulbs. Most of them made it through the winter just fine, and I transplanted them from the containers in which I started them to the raised bed I built this spring. It's only June, and they're turning brown. Should I not worry, and just let them go until next year? Cindi, you said July, but you are much farther north than me...is it possible they're done growing for the season already? Here is a picture, sorry they're a little hard to see:

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"The mouth of a perfectly contented man is filled with beer." - Egyptian Proverb, 2200 BC

I have mostly hardneck in two separate plantings. One is down the middle of my asparagus row and they are doing very well - cut the scapes about a week and a half ago and just a little bit brown on the tips. I did lose half a dozen bulbs to onion maggot but we side dressed with wood ash twice and I feel pretty certain that has taken care of it.

Our second planting area is very intensive. We do a lot of square foot gardening so we try to make sure to water and fert more than usual. We treated this bed with wood ash, too - no signs of maggots but we wanted to be sure we didn't just chase them from one bed to the other. We also gave a side dress of bone meal (or was it blood meal?) in the early spring. I would say that at least one full leaf on most plants is brown and the tips are browning. But the scapes have not really come in yet so they can't be mature.

I am just hoping it is not fusarium wilt...especially so close to a harvest!

Today we side dressed with worm castings to make sure they weren't just getting tired being in the same soil since Halloween.

I will say that if anyone does any "companion planting" - it seems to me that garlic and asparagus like each other very much (despite all the warnings about root competition). Both are doing exceptionally well this year. Although I haven't pulled any mature garlic yet I have high hopes for it based on the how well the plants are currently doing.

Any suggestions for what might be turning our NJ garlic brown would be a great help!

SgtMaj. About the garlic. I wonder why you leave them for two years? Maybe you know something that I don't know. I need to know.

When I plant garlic, I plant the cloves in the fall, that be sometime in September, or early October. By the July of the following year I always have beautiful and big bulbs, comprised of about 6-8 cloves. I have never left them in for the two years, and now I really am wondering if they would be even nicer if I left them in for two years. So.....now you have sent me into experimental mode. I am going to tag and leave a fair number of the bulbs (that were cloves last year) and see what happens in the following year.

I know that very often I don't get all the bulbs up and they resprout in the spring in places where I never even planted them.

One year I let the garlic flowers mature and they produced hundreds upon thousands of little bulbils. I planted these tiny little bulbils in a particular spot in the garden. The following summer they produced a bigger bulb, I left them again for that year and then the bigger bulbils produced bulbs the following year. So that was a two year process and very time consuming, not going there again.

I have garlic coming out of my ears everywhere. I think that the squirrels must dig them up too and replant them. How else could they get in the places where no human hand has ever been? That befuddles me, but oh that is a great thing. I have never bought garlic now in years and years.......we are garlic. Have that most beautiful and wonderful day, love this great life we are all livin' and sharin'. Cindi

I leave mine in for 2 years because they don't get planted until spring (remember I pretty much only plant grocery store garlic that has sprouted before I had a chance to use it, and it always seems to sprout in the early spring). My garlic bulbs come out to be about 2" wide with maybe 8 or so big cloves each. It's probably about the same as yours, it's just that they won't fill out the bulb with multiple cloves the first year when I plant in spring (If desperate for garlic, I have been known to harvest some the same year, and they are usually just one giant clove about 1" diameter at that point. Also they had a very onion-y taste to them when they are so young.

SgtMaj. I see why you say two years. Why don't you plant some in the fall, before the first hard frost, then by the summertime, you will have mature garlic bulbs. I have planted garlic in the spring before, and yes, it just doesn't have the months of underground bulb growth that fall planted garlic has. Garlic doesn't have to sprout to grow, probably better if it has not sprouted, I would think.

Moonshae and Jess. Gardening is so different in places. My comments may not be applicable to either of you.

Moonshae, your garlic is mature, it is putting forth flowers. If I were you, I would cut those flower tops off and allow the plants to mature just a little bit more. This is what I do, it may be right for you. I go by how the plants look. When I have cut off the flower tops and I see that about half of the plant has started to go brown, I pull the bulbs. I lay them in the sun to cure for half of a day, now remember, I am not that hot up here, the afternoons are hot enough, but I think farther south it is scorching, laying in the shade to cure would be the way to go in a really hot place.

After this initial curing, then the garlic is hung up, the bulbs facing downwards, this works like a wick and wicks out the moisture. Moonshae, I would suggest pulling the garlic soon and curing it a little bit. Come the time in the fall when the garlic should be planted, take those bulbs and separate the cloves, plant the cloves individually. I think this is what you should do. This is what I would do. The plants are almost fully mature and you will see that the cloves that you planted have now bulbed, I am sure. Pull one out and see, report back, and maybe more comments can be made, depending upon what you find beneath the soil. I would love to know.

Jess, I can't comment about what is going on with the browning tips. Maybe others can chime in. I do know one thing though, garlic does not require an awful lot of feeding during the few months prior to it maturing, are you over-fertilizing? Just a thought.....garlic does love to be fed. And yes, manure, holy smoking smokers, they love that stuff. I have to get a picture of my garlic that somehow got into a spot in my asparagus patch, where it is manured heavily with turkey and compost. It is monster garlic!!! It is very pretty growing amongst the asparagus.

Good luck, hope all works out with the garlic. Yum, yum!!! Beautiful and most wonderful day, love and live life like there never was a tomorrow. Cindi

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There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold. The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold. The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee. Robert Service

SgtMgr. That darkness on the outer skin of the garlic is quite common. It is a form of mould. I see it sometimes on my garlic bulbs, I pay no mind, when the garlic is harvested and dried, the outer skin has that, but the inner skin on the bulb and the skin on the cloves is just fine. Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Get some garlic bulbs, set some cloves in the ground in the fall. It is quite inexpensive for the gain that you will have next summer. It is worth it, honestly. Don't wait for spring for the bulbs to sprout, using the ones that are not very edible looking for table use. Just do that thing, hee, hee. Not trying to be bossy, just trying to convince you to get garlic bulbs sooner than two years. Beautiful day in this most wonderful life, Cindi

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There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold. The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold. The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee. Robert Service

I pulled up one of my garlic plants (the brownest, most wilted one) and it was just one clove. I suspect the rest are the same, since they were started in the fall from bulbils. Should I just let them die back, and expect them to sprout again next spring? Or are they just going to rot in the ground if I leave them there, wasting the whole years' effort?

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"The mouth of a perfectly contented man is filled with beer." - Egyptian Proverb, 2200 BC

I pulled up one of my garlic plants (the brownest, most wilted one) and it was just one clove. I suspect the rest are the same, since they were started in the fall from bulbils. Should I just let them die back, and expect them to sprout again next spring? Or are they just going to rot in the ground if I leave them there, wasting the whole years' effort?

Let them come back and they should resprout and do fine. If you've had unfavorable weather, they may not have been able to fill out the way they usually do.

SgtMgr. That darkness on the outer skin of the garlic is quite common. It is a form of mould. I see it sometimes on my garlic bulbs, I pay no mind, when the garlic is harvested and dried, the outer skin has that, but the inner skin on the bulb and the skin on the cloves is just fine. Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Get some garlic bulbs, set some cloves in the ground in the fall. It is quite inexpensive for the gain that you will have next summer. It is worth it, honestly. Don't wait for spring for the bulbs to sprout, using the ones that are not very edible looking for table use. Just do that thing, hee, hee. Not trying to be bossy, just trying to convince you to get garlic bulbs sooner than two years. Beautiful day in this most wonderful life, Cindi

You're too late, I just set out my garlic from this spring... I set out around 15 cloves that had begun to sprout.

Moonshae. One year I gathered the bulbils from the flowers on the garlic. I had read that it takes two years to form bulbs from the bulbils themselves. Yes, that was correct, it did. I had hundreds of one clove bulbs that grew from those bulbils. I just left them in the ground, ensuring that I had thinned them to about 4 inches apart. Those bulbils in the second year grew bulbs with about 6-8 cloves in each bulb. That is a great way of propagating garlic, but takes some time. Leave the bulbils in the ground, if they have a little bit of blackish stuff, ignore it.....they will do fine. I had saved some of the bulbils that formed from some of the plants that I let flower. I had put then in a spot where it was dry with the intention of planting them. Good luck with that this year, just so far behind. So I took these whole whack of bulbils and threw them around the property. I know that they will do their own thing, whatever that may be and come up and sprout and grow, and now I know that I will eventually have even more garlic, growing wildly, beyond my wildest dreams. My property is becoming more wild every year, hee, hee. Beautiful and most wonderful day, Cindi

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There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold. The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold. The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee. Robert Service

Thanks, Cindi. We thought we screwed something up by transplanting, I guess they're just waiting for next year. I can't wait to pull them up then and be able to get bulbs each year...but buying cloves was too expensive, since we'd have to buy far more than we needed.

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"The mouth of a perfectly contented man is filled with beer." - Egyptian Proverb, 2200 BC

I harvested mine this week too. I planted one bulb in october, and they grew well. i now am the proud owner of about 125 bulbs. Only my elephant garlic failed, all other varities did well. I should have planted more. Pound for pound, garlic is a good value for a home gardener. It was $4.25/lb at Acme for white garlic. I must have about 17 lbs i guess and I paid about $20 for bulbs in fall.

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"The more complex the Mind, the Greater the need for the simplicity of Play".

so we're coming up to garlic planting time again. instead of selling most of the garlic i grew this past season i'm going to plant a lot of it. the stuff sells very well at the farmers market. but it makes no sense to me to sell it and then have to buy some from someone else. since i just have hardneck garlic i ordered some softneck fromhttp://wegrowgarlic.com/301.html

they seem to have the best price. the only seller of softneck garlic at the farmers market refuses to sell any to me because she wants it all for braids. must make good money for her and next year it will for me. or maybe the year after.

Yup. This fall I am planting mostly softneck for braiding next summer. People really eat that up. I have a few varieties of hardnecks, but they are mostly for my own use around the kitchen as they have special tastes I want (hot, firey etc.).

My coworker is our botanist here (I am the wildlife biologist), and he always has a fabulous garden. Usually he plants at least 10 different varieties of garlic and has so much left over that he gives me what he can't plant. This year he is planting left overs from what he grew, so I don't get his extras. Got a big order coming in soon. Got my beds ready and the weather is good too. I'm pretty much ready for garlicing season.

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After 18 months of reading and preparation, my girls finally arrived on April 11th (2006)!